Last December—three days before he went on trial for ‘publicly denigrating Turkishness’—I interviewed Orhan Pamuk. It was not and could never have been the usual sort of exchange, because we speak often: over the past three years, I have translated three of his books. We have known each othe…
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‘I think there should be a National Service of Hospitality. The best way to see the true face of humanity is to serve it a plate of chips.’
Camilla Grudova on bad-mannered customers.
‘Anyone who has ever worked night shifts will understand the vertiginous feeling that comes with staring down the day from the wrong end.’
A.K. Blakemore on working nights.
‘I was constantly reading job ads, trying to find my holy grail – a job I could stand to do, and someone foolish enough to hire me.’
Sandra Newman on learning how to play professional blackjack.
‘I loved being a receptionist. What I loved about it was playing the part of being a receptionist.’
Emily Berry on being a temporary office worker.
‘Every part of you would swell, including your eyeballs, and no matter how much water you drank, you were always dehydrated.’
Junot Díaz on working for a steel mill.
‘It seemed perfectly normal for middle-class writers to tell the stories of the underclass. But the presumed creator of literature has been changing.’
Granta interviews Wu Qi.
‘How would I feel if I had messaged for years with someone that I later found out was an AI?’
Brea Souders speaks to Alice Zoo about chatbots, interconnection and the dialogue between photography and text in her work.
‘I think what draws me in is the spectacle of the law trying to deal with something that nothing can deal with – just the wildness of people.’
Izabella Scott in conversation with Helen Garner.
‘Ask anyone in Ayodhya, and they will say the city’s Hindu–Muslim harmony can withstand any test.’
Snigdha Poonam on the construction of a Hindu temple on the ruins of a mosque in Utter Pradesh.
‘You are what you do, and you are what you write, to some extent, I believe that at least.’
Lauren Oyler on personality, intention and the collapse between private and authorial selves.
‘I can't remember whose idea it was, whose heart first beat faster, who made the other excited, but at some point Doug and I decided to row a boat to Alaska.’
